One lot of bad polling, in a week when HM Opposition dominated the political news agenda (despite his best efforts), and the Prime Minister has run scared from calling an election*. When an election is finally called, perhaps we should consider whether this bollockless wonder really is the person we want to be making decisions for us, especially over issues of national security. He seems to have 
I am still suffering from surprise, so much so that having just edited another video for constituents and loaded it onto YouTube ready for the coming week's email newsletter, I have taken to a soothing, relaxing bath.What I find surprising is that Brwon let so much speculation run riot about an election that a climbdown was almost inconceivable. Having done all the preparations, brought forward
The LibDems’ European selection campaign in London was well and truly launched today, when the capital’s one and only regional hustings was held at Oxford House in Bethnal Green. Though it was still not clear last night that Gordon Brown was going to chicken out of the election his Labour Party advisors had so rashly floated as a possibility, the decision was nonetheless taken to go ahead with the event — the PM’s bottling out proving to be a delightful interlude announcement. The attendance at the hustings would doubtless have been higher had there not been election fever in the air — ...
One of the most amusing moments of the day was listening to Nigel Griffiths, MP for Edinburgh South (majority over popular Lib Dem campaigner Fred Mackintosh 405), bang on about how he would have beaten Fred by 2500 now and would by 4000 in 2 years time. For someone who has been very careless with the 11,000 majority he had, which was reduced down to 405 by Marilyne MacLaren, this is reckless talk indeed. And how arrogant to assume that he would increase his popularity by such a margin. You'd think he'd have learnt by now not to take people ...
Who would have thought it? Last weekend I cried real tears at the thought of another month away from home, and at the thought of missing Hallowe'en - after all, Anna is only 8 once. Today a bit of me feels cheated cos I'd really psyched myself up for this campaign and the adrenalin rush had started. I was still burnt out and knackered, but I knew that some unknown strength would propel me towards polling day and I'd just collapse afterwards. Now I have the chance to do normal things, like go to the cinema, and the gym (which ... 
Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes (I know we were supposed to be well up for an election but lets face it we dodged a bullet on that one).
Posted by Chris: Well there we are then Gordon Brown has chickened out of calling an election. As Maureen Rigg, Lib Dem group leader on Stockton Council points out, Council staff have been taken off other jobs to prepare for a possible election. How much has this cost? What a waste of time and money! He has ruled out an election for this year and next but he has not taken my advice, as if I expected he would, to avoid much of the criticism, he is getting and will continue to get, and agree to a fixed term Parliament. ...
Yes, probably. So Gordon has backed off and suddenly October looks a less hectic prospect. The focus shifts from national policies back to local, from 4p off income tax to vandalism at the Badger Farm central kickabout area. The election we're thinking about moves from November 1 to May 1. We could be in for an interesting winter.
Our heritage in this area really is "something to write home about", or in this case blog about. We were on a trip down the River Tees on the Teesside Princess with the Friends of Tees Heritage Park. There was some lovely scenery and it was a perfect day for seeing it. The river boat give views that cannot be seen from other places and it is well worth making the trip if you live...
In the middle of London Regions Euro and Mayoral hustings this afternoon, we heard that Gordon Brown would not be calling a General Election. It came as no surprise to me. As I said in an earlier blog, it seemed unlikely to me that Gordon would call an election if there wasn't a cast iron certainty that he would win it, and win it convincingly. Think about it: after more than a decade of waiting and plotting to become Prime Minister, does our dour and cautious Prime Minister seem the type that would risk throwing it all away? Much better ...
It does no one any harm to have a false start. We've been out locally doing an increased level of residents' surveys during the last two weeks. Our organisation has been given a shot of adrenalin. Thank you Gordon Brown. It's been a surreal few weeks. It is clear that when he sets his hounds off the leash, Gordon Brown finds it very difficult to tell them to stop and put them back on the leash.
It seems that Gordon Brown has decided not to risk losing his parliamentary majority just yet. I'm sure that I'm not alone in my distaste for the posturing of the last few weeks. If he genuinely wanted the chance to show the British people that he's developing policies that are going to make a difference in the country he should have said that a month or more ago. Instead, he's caused council
Well I much relieved goomba this evening I must say. Two weeks ago Signor Rennard approach me in Little Sicily war-bunker for private chat. "Liberali" he say "while Don Campbell may in public have being saying the Liberali Family are ready for whatever Don Brown and Don Cameron might throw at them after their seaside rumbles, the reality might be somewhat different." "No kidding" I say "I being doing audit of Little Sicily regime and unless local Labouristi gang also happen to consist of 20 little old ladies with knitting needles, two criminal studies students, a 16 year-old RISO battery, ...
For the 5th time this season Leeds United left it late to keep up their unbeaten run and climb to within 6 points of the league leaders. But their perfect run of home wins this season was nearly brought to an end by Paddy Ashdown's men, who for much of the game looked like the best team. Yeovil certainly deserved a draw after their first ever appearance at Elland Road. Once again though, the crowd of 27,808 was lifting the rafters with noise and this clearly kept, what must have been Uniteds tallest ever team, going right to the bitter ...
So Mr Brown has decided not to call a General Election, and 50,000 political activists from every party under the sun breath a collective sigh of relief / joy that they don’t have to pound the streets in the autumn cold handing out election leaflets. Much as I like election campaigns, one per year is enough I think. I am not the first to say it, and I won’t be the last, but I think our Prime Minister has scored a big own goal with this one. Not with the decision itself, perhaps, so much as the way it was made. ...
Ever since I heard about Gordon Brown’s decision to call off an autumn ballot, I’ve been thinking of Helen, the runner up of Big Brother Series 2. Famously, for the proverbial 15 minutes at any rate, Helen liked blinking. Well, Gordon Brown has just given it a go and I get the feeling he doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like it at all. And yet. And yet. Reading Jeremy Hargreaves’ piece on the tragedy of Cameron has got me thinking. While Gordon Brown’s nods and winks about a November poll have successfully united the Tory party and given them a good ...
Right, so I should have kept my nerve, obviously, in saying he’d never actually do it. But this must surely mark the end of people’s trust for Gordon, big time. The latest turn of events just makes it even more plain that he’s been playing games with us all - and once he’s been revealed as the casino gambler, he’s going to find it very difficult to go back in our minds to being the dour Scottish bank manager again. Throughout I’ve been convinced that Mr Brown is working to a plan, but I confess that if today’s developments are ...
Joost Van Dongelbraacke’s peppery constitution is the subject of not one, not two, but three new publications, a book, a pamphlet, and a monthly magazine. One might think that the constitution of a suburban shaman is too thin a topic to support a regular periodical, particularly such a fat and glossy one, but that is to discount the monomania of its editor, Tilly Whelkstallholder. Tilly is a woman of considerable intellectual energy. Early in life, her ambition was to become, like Eva Crane, a pivotal figure in the world of beekeeping for half a century, but she had to abandon ...
I have just heard on the radio that there will be no election this autumn. I had worked out a great plan with my team and was ready to go. On the positive side we can tinker with the plan and carry on with some other work I have been wanting to get involved in. Top of my agenda at the moment is the Phlebotomy service in Warwick & Leamington which has been reduced in many areas causing a real problem for residents. I will write about this in a few days. The other key issue is crime in Leamington ...
Its been a busy day, I managed to get round all of our regular surgeries today, this is a great opportunity for people to meet their local councillors and talk about issues affecting them. We hold surgeries at the following times. Crown Way Shops 1st & 3rd Saturday each month 10:00 to 11:00 Landsdown Street 1st Saturday each month at 11:15 to 12:15 Rugby Road 1st Saturday each month at 11:30 to 12:30 I then went round Leamington delivering leaflets on behalf of one of our European Candidates. Our selection rules (the so called neutering of the candidates) probably forbid ... 
Brown's people are already spinning against Douglas Alexander, according to Adam Boulton, alleging that it's all his fault. Iain Dale today. Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his life. Jeremy Thorpe 1962
Good. No election. Well, I'll qualify that a little - the relatively short pain of a three week campaign could have seen friend and former council colleague Steve Goddard give Andrew Smith some unwanted leisure time for Christmas, which would have been fantastic - but I'm pleased we won't have to for now. There may now be three, four, even five more party conferences in which to whip up a storm of revolutionary liberalism to really wow the electorate with a genuine alternative to the "cosy consensus" which, in my opinion anyway, is not evident right now in our policies. ...
As Iain Dale so nearly (but doesn’t quite) manages to bring himself to admit, Ming Campbell was on the media with his reaction to the general election news well ahead of David Cameron, the Liberal Democrat news release went out much more quickly than the Conservative one, and the Liberal Democrat website was updated promptly [...]
And with those immortal words, Gordon Brown has ensured his place in a future generation of Grolsch adverts. I am sure he's done it just to spite those of us who had carefully prepared our election timetables. No need for those carefully prepared logistical calculations. All of Cowley Street and all of our key seats were worked up into a state of frenzy - I am tempted to ask Gordon to change his mind just so that we can all see how well our plans were going to work. Maybe we'll have the post-election staff party anyway, just to illustrate ...
I am standing in a field picking sloes to use for gin making and the message has just come through that the election is off. He has bottled it. I am surprised. So much for my predictions. I'll go back to picking sloes. I could do with a drink! Pity the sloe gin won't be available for months!Incidentally I found the sloes growing when I came to this field this afternoon for the unvieling of a
As the News of the World marginal seats poll seems to be the way the date of the general election is fixed, what if the News of the World decided to do the poll only once every four years and on a fixed date? That would give us fixed-term Parliaments by the back door I think. Woof woof.
Michael White on News 24: "George Canning had a good excuse for leaving office early. He died." A fine insight Sir Michael.
Paul Walter, first off the mark: Brown abandons early election idea Will Howells, on the feline angle: No election Liberal Democrat Voice, with the Chris Rennard’s reaction: Nick Robinson on News 24: general election this year is off Lynne Featherstone, on how Tony Blair is probably enjoying all this: No to a general election this year Ming Campbell, pointing [...]
The Mayor had just cut the ribbons and the balloons floated up into the sky. Today we were celebrating two exciting new ventures. Buckland Infants and Moor Lane Junior have amalgamated to form Castle Hill Primary, under the headship of Chris Wansborough. At the same time the first Children's Centre in South of the Borough opened on the Buckland site....
16:30 Ming has made it very early onto BBC News 24 to react to Gordon Brown's "no election" decision. He adroitly pointed out that the LibDems are actually doing very well in real elections - by-elections. Andrew Marr has just gone into 10 Downing Street to interview the PM. It's been clear all along that the depth of Brown's calculating political cunning would eventually come out into the open
Labour cannot pretend that they were not planning on a potential General Election. Obviously they would wait until they have full information and a sort of dry run election during the conferences does give a better steer. The postal strikes do not help. However, we now believe that Brown has bottled it. We are waiting for the annoucement.
Following the news that Gordon Brown has decided not to hold a general election this autumn, Liberal Democrat leader Ming Campbell spoke live to BBC News 24. He said: “There’s no doubt people will see this as a loss of nerve on the part of the prime minister. “It follows the mishandled trip to Iraq which upset many people, including the announcement on troop numbers which turned out not to be all it seemed. “His predecessor as Prime Minister promised to serve a full term and didn’t. Gordon Brown should have called an election when he took office.” Commenting on ...
The Conservatives would be incandescent with mock rage if a Lib Dem or Labour Council had introduced an extra charge for collecting more than one bag of rubbish. Yet this scheme is being introduced by Tory Broxbourne council and the Tories are keeping very quiet about it.
So - lovely, lovely Nick Robinson, a journalist who I only hold in the highest esteem you know (!) - is saying the general election is off. Looks like Gordon Brown wimped out in the end! Tony Blair must be in seventh heaven - to see Gordon brought so low! And to be frank - I wouldn't blame him. Gordon has made a right pig's ear of the whole business - toying with us the electorate, flattered by polls, cynically using Maggie, Iraq and his big tent appointees to big himself up. Tony Blair - with whom I disagreed fundamentally ...
Headline says it all really. Let’s see how long it takes for a Labour loyalist to say, “Oh, but Gordon never ever intended to hold an election. He’s been courageous and decisive all along you know, and was never intending to hold an election. It has all been a clever wheeze you understand. But a statesman-like, [...]
I’m not a rugby man. But I’m fast becoming one! It’s been four years since THAT Johnny Wilkinson drop goal won England the 2003 World Cup. In that time, England’s performances as world champions have been mostly forgettable. I tuned in to the 2007 World Cup quarter final expecting a battering. But England proved their doubters wrong in the best way possible - dumping the Aussies out. Sweet! It was one hell of a courageous performance, gritty, determined, not always pretty but very, very effective. Is there any sweeter sight for an Englishman than seeing an Australian sportsman in tears ...
Gordon Brown isn’t going to call a general election, Nick Robinson is reporting. Scaredy cat, scaredy cat, sitting on the doormat. Of Number 10. For a few more months at least. So he’s messed around with Labour’s activists, led electoral officers around the country to make unnecessary preparations, and caused the news agenda to be dominated by election speculation - rather than, say, actual news - for weeks. Well done, Gordon. And all the time you were “getting on with running the country” and not at all strategising with your advisers. Not at all. And now what have you decided? ...
BBC News story 14:50: Snap election 'ruled out; Gordon Brown is expected to say he will not call a general election this autumn, the BBC has learned. Nick Robinson, the BBC's political correspondent, understands that Mr Brown is due to make a statement soon. Opposition leaders had challenged Mr Brown to end uncertainty over whether he would call an election after mounting speculation in
Last year, following my request, the City Council arranged repair of the mosaic in the square, in front of the Rep (click on headline above to read more). A resident contacted me recently to say bits of the mosaic have broken off and I therefore contacted the Economic Development Department about this. I have now received the following positive response : "We have now inspected the Square and agree it needs some attention. We will liaise with the Public Art Officer and ascertain the best method of remediation."
The link is to a criminal prosecution (that in the absence of any evidence to the contrary I would believe to be safe) for FII or MSbP. FII is a better description of the situation as it is Fabricating an Illness (by proxy). One of the problems with the debate about MSbP (and also SBS and CML) is that it does exist. The question is how one can identify when it is the case. It is not
I've been speaking today on BBC Radio 4's Moneybox programme - which you can hear here - about pensions. I had a written parliamentary answer that indicated that up to half a million women were just a year or two short on their National Insurance records and as a result get absolutely no basic state pension in their own right at all. I'm highlighting the fact that there is a scheme that allows them to pay their extra years, get a boost to their pension backdated to when they were sixty, and possibly simply get a cheque from the Government ...
I submitted this script (a later version is here) to the Windsor Fringe New Drama Writing competition this year and it turns out I was one of the six runners up, which is nice and a bit odd, as I've never really seen myself as a writer, although I enjoy the experience. Anyway, I'm off to go and see a proper play tonight - The Hothouse by Harold Pinter.
As reported over on my main website, the planned expansion of Coleridge School has run into delays. Yet again the Labour-run Haringey Council has shown its inability to provide new reception places on time and on budget. Not impressed!
In his speech to the Liberal Democrat Scottish conference in Glasgow, Liberal Democrat Leader Ming Campbell made clear that the party is ready for a general election whenever Gordon Brown calls it. He called on Gordon Brown to end the election speculation and apologise to our services about his announcement on troop withdrawals from Iraq. We may be just 72 hours away from the start of the General Election campaign. And I can’t wait. This party has the candidates, the organisation and the determination to fight the most effective campaign in our history. On a manifesto of policies that would ...
Promising news in The Times today, though - as ever with G Brown - it's a matter of media briefings, nods and winks rather than direct plain talking in public, so we'll see what next week really does bring!
I found this week’s Conservative conference very interesting to observe – not because I thought they managed to establish a new position and momentum for themselves, but in fact because of the very opposite. For the position they were groping towards setting out is all too consistent with what the Conservative party has been saying really ever since Thatcher. Let me explain. The developing wisdom seems to be that Osborne’s proposal to restrict Inheritance Tax (IHT) was very clever in winning back more public support, and that alongside a reasonably strong performance from Cameron, they have therefore together re-established the ...
In recent elections it has been pretty clear to everyone when the elections were going to be called and because of this, very few constituencies did not have candidates already selected by each of the three main parties. Because of this it was not always easy for a slightly ignorant press to pick out which seats the parties were targeting as the press become obsessed each time with uniform swings and national factors whilst ignoring what is happening on the ground. This election, should it happen, will be very different. There are vast swathes of the country that have not ...
A little while ago I decided it was time to let bygones be bygones, bury the hatchet, let the water run under the bridge etc etc and ask Ming to be my friend on Facebook and he has accepted?! Now I know he doesn't actually have much to do with his Facebook, doesn't spend much time poking people or sending them wet smelly yellow invitations like my charming daughter does (!), maybe if he had he would have spurned me...............but now I have the opportunity to start my little campaign to write on Ming's wall...........more about that later.
There hasn't been much in the press about this sadly, but on Monday the Government has decided to ban a peaceful march called by the Stop the War Coalition. The protest has been called to demand all the troops withdrawn from Iraq immediately. The police have said all protests within one mile of Parliament are now prohibited. This is an affront to democratic rights and totally contradicts Brown's commitment to liberalising protest laws. I am very disappointed that as a party we seem to have withdrawn support for STWC, not as individuals obviously, but collectively. I would not only like ...
It's fascinating to see how the public have warmed to the idea of a general election. On 26th September, YouGov measured 29% saying GB should call an election this autumn. On 30th September, MORI put the same measure at 39%. Today, ICM say 48% want a poll now. That's a remarkable trend, albeit from different pollsters. I don't really buy this "Labour disintegration - Cameron riding wave"
My choice for "Letter of the Week" has to be that from David Purdy of Stirling, published in the Guardian today: Gordon Brown could yet emerge with credit from the unseemly election fever (Cameron bounces back, October 5). All he has to do is announce next week that the next general election will take place on the first Sunday in May 2009 and that thereafter elections will be held at fixed four
I recently asked the powers that be, at our local Council, if they could put a link to my blog in the 'getting in touch with your local Councillor' section. No, its too political, they said. Two points come to mind. Firstly, er yeah, well spotted, I'm a member of a political party, I stood in an election with a political agenda and am part of a political group on the Council. Your point is? Secondly, can my ramblings about Railway Club's, Football Club's, jogging, etc be considered too political?. As long as I keep off the Conservatives it's just ...
Out {Lynne Featherstone's page on theyworkforyou.com} campaigning yesterday, I bumped into one of the guys who started faxyourmp.com, theyworkforyou.com etc - he's one of my constituents. If you don't know the sites - they make it easy for the public to contact us MPs, find out what we've been doing, how hard we've been working, how we voted on different issues etc. All good stuff - and I think that even after having become an MP myself! Having these sites is a bit like being performance managed - and basically it's good and keeps us on our toes. As with ...
This is my first attempt at video blogging. The production values are awful (i.e. the lighting and framing is poor) and the editing is crude to say the least. Still, I thought I would unleash it onto the world anyway. It can only get better.
This morning's Western Mail reports that yet another Labour researcher has lost his job over blogging. The paper tells us that Marcus Warner, who worked for Islwyn AM Irene James, was forced to leave after material he posted on a number of blogs was deemed “offensive and inappropriate”. His departure follows that of David Collins, who resigned from his job as a researcher with Vale of Clwyd AM, Ann Jones, after describing Welsh as a “brain-dead language”. The article is remarkably short of any further details. Fortunately, the Welsh blogosphere has stepped into the breach and given us the full ...
The question that everyone involved in politics wants to know is whether there will be an early General Election or not. It’s gone from seeming fairly unlikely, to possible, to very likely, to fairly unlikely, all in the space of just a few weeks. It’s pretty frustrating, but then Gordon Brown is probably enjoying the unpredictability of it. Of everything that’s been said about it, I think that the most telling comment was Ed Balls’ comment “the question is what is the biggest gamble”. In other words, is Gordon Brown better going now where there are pretty decent opinion polls ...
The Mayor of London is going to be making a trip to India very soon and no doubt his visit will be used as a posturing opportunity in a vain attempt to garner support from Asian communities in the UK as the London mayoral elections draw in. Interestingly when there is an election, Ken starts to travel to far flung places in a vain attempt to gather support though this is not a knock box against Ken since he has stood up on minority issues and has been vocal on them. What I object to is the use and abuse ...
I have had a nice letter from La Featherstone - would I like to fill in a questionnaire about NHS provision in Haringey? I would love to! I am a national and I have health! So I sit on the sofa alternately playing with notes for Saturday’s mayoral hustings, stuffing chocolate fingers into my mouth (Gordon Brown doesn’t seem to realise he holds the immediate future of weight control chez Mortimer in the palm of his hand; if an election is called then it’s chippie chips for dinner for a month) and completing said survey. I don’t know whether I’m just exceptionally naive and literal but I do have real ...
Property "guru" (well I say guru as I understand she participates in one of those DIY developer programs on a TV channel I don't receive, probably thankfully) Lucy Alexander reflects in the Times today on some of the potential effects of the Tory plans to try to take most family homes out of Inheritance Tax by lifting the threshold to £1m: The property boom under Labour has created a generation of accidental property millionaires, many of whom are forced in later life to sell their homes to avoid imposing a punitive inheritance tax burden on their children. Under the Tory ...
The Telegraph reports that the government is to force councils to raise Council Tax by more than inflation so he can divert more central money to the NHS and education. Responding, Eric Pickles, the Tory local government spokesman, said: "Council tax is starting to become unbearable. Gordon Brown is using smoke and mirrors which is shameful. But, I think people will recognise what is going on. Mr Brown has already fooled them before in this way." Funny that. Not so bad that it deserved your attention when deciding which tax to cut last week was it, Mr Pickles? Starting to ...
Friday: The media's topsy-turvy view of the world is that Mr Balloon wanted to AVOID an election because he was bound to LOSE, but by putting the Conservatories back in contention he has actually avoided a chance to WIN. They think that Mr Frown is basing his calculation on whether he will gain or lose seats in Parliament. A simple choice – if he thinks his majority will go UP then off to the Country we will go. In fact, I think that they are missing a BIGGER factor: if the Conservatories lose this time, it could be FOREVER – ... | < | October 2007 | > | ||||
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